Crowds Hit New Low

By Jon Charles
November 15 2004

The crowds for last weekends Celtic League matches hit a new low with under 15,000 attending the five games.

Not withstanding that many star players are missing because of the autumn internationals the numbers attending the games must be a great concern for the clubs/regions/provinces and the three Celtic unions.

In Wales the most alarming fall off in numbers is undoubtedly Cardiff, there were just 2,799 at Saturday’s game at the Arms Park where Glasgow were the visitors. This must be the lowest crowd recorded at the ground since the game went professional, indeed not so long ago the Rags would attract a crowd not far short of that figure.

No doubt a Saturday evening kick-off and the televising of the game will be one reason for such a poor crowd but in football’s Premiership they have no such problems with the kick-offs staggered over four days - Friday to Monday - to accommodate television cameras they still play in front of full houses.

In their four home games in the league so far this season Cardiff are averaging 4,725 having already played the two teams, Dragons and Scarlets, who would be expected to draw the biggest crowds. Those games pulled in 7,401 and 4,832 respectively which are very poor compared to what’s gone before.

The best supported Welsh ’region’ is Llanelli with an average of 6,576, though here to the trend is down. Their first match of the campaign against the Ospreys attracted over 8,000 but each game since the numbers have decreased and there were only 4,200 at the Racecourse Wrexham for the match against Leinster on Sunday.

At Rodney Parade the average of 5,224 is well up on the numbers for the same period last season but no where near the figures recorded before the formation of the ‘regions’. The biggest disappointment here was the match against Leinster, the Irish province fielded their strongest team for the first time this season and the game had in opposition the only two world class players in the Celtic League, Brian O’Driscoll and Percy Montgomery, yet just over 5,000 bothered to turn out.

The table topping Ospreys are the worst supported team averaging 4,535 for their four home games with a high of just over 5,000 for the visit of Cardiff. This should improve though with visits from the Scarlets and Dragons to come in the second half of the season.

Of the other teams in the League, Ulster are second to Llanelli with an average of 6,571, Munster come next on 6,138, then come the three remaining Welsh ‘regions’ followed by Leinster on 4,455. After that it gets pretty desperate with Glasgow on 2,379, Edinburgh 2,203, Connacht 1,712 and lastly Borders at 1,490.

It must be said that Ireland did a great disservice to the Celtic League by withdrawing their international squad players from the first few weeks of the season and at a stroke devalued the competition in many supporters eyes. Is it any wonder a sponsor cannot be found for the competition when the participants do not take it seriously!

Some will no doubt say that Ireland’s victory over the Springboks last Saturday justifies their stance, but surely its not beyond those who administer the game to come up with structure that will allow the top players to be available for the premier competition of the Celtic nations.

It seems to work quite well in England where they have a very competitive league structure and are World Cup holders.

Hopefully with the return of the international stars support in the Celtic League will increase, though taking in the figures for the early part of the season sadly there’s little evidence that they will make a significant difference.

The one positive thing from last week was the better than expected 35,000 that turned out for the Wales and Romania game, this would suggest that the support is there and the challenge for the regions is to get these supporters to attend matches on a regular basis.

Taken from SportingWales.com